Curate of Curiosities

Now, Skylight, in comparison to The Demon Rush, didn't make much of a splash. But that doesn't mean it completely elude indie gamers' notice: I did manage to find a review that, while aware of the game's many flaws, recognizes that there was a lot of work put into it for a one-person project.

Yet, despite practically nonexistent feedback, either good or bad, The D somehow got the idea to give it a sequel.

Skylight 2: Winters of Discontent was the D's very first game to be in 3D, so instead of crude MS Paint sprites, our characters are represented by dead-eyed, sausage-fingered homunculi as you can see above. It's even worse in action, and don't worry, you'll see them in action a lot, especially since The D took a more cinematic approach with the cutscenes this time around.

On the gameplay side of things, it's The D's only game to be a turn-based strategy game. Unlike regular turn-based RPGs, this isn't a genre that I have much experience in. I've played Fire Emblem for GBA as well as the first Langrisser (which you might know better as Warsong), and that's pretty much it for this genre.

Unlike its predecessors, it seems to be entirely unknown outside the dev's website. The only gameplay footage from this game that I've seen doesn't even finish the first mission! Yet despite its pretty much complete obscurity, this game serves as the bridge between the wellspring of jokes that was The Demon Rush and the testament to nonexistent quality control that was his later games.

So, here's the rundown of the cast:

• Melissa Mills, the de-facto leader. A grumpy workaholic. Slow and tanky.
• Tyler Foreman, wannabe hero-cop. A massive horndog. Good with pistols and fists.
• Erin Mitchell, reformed member of the criminal underworld. Speedy and good with shotguns.
• Gregory Brenner, former member of another criminal gang. About as horny as Tyler.
• Simon Cole, the team's medic.
• Bethany McCloud, Tyler's partner. Good with pistols and rifles.

The game opens with the same team from the previous game apprehending some guy and his Indestructible pet. Yes, real considerate of you, have one of the first enemies you fight be the creatures that terrorized Toronto last game. But wait, you may ask, didn't the Indestructibles all get killed by the nation-spanning wildfire last game? Well, according to this game's story recap, said wildfire took place in 2031, while the tutorial mission took place in 2029.

From there, the gang--minus their field medic--moves on to the Great White North--Yukon Province, where someone apparently found some more symbiote. Definitely saves The D the trouble of coming up with a new McGuffin for the various villainous factions to go after. After a brief tutorial where you bully Tyler for a bit, we go on to our first proper objective: find out who's behind this.

The main gameplay gimmick of this game is that, true to it's title, most of the game's missions will take place in cold, snowy environments. For this, both your party members and enemies are wearing winter coats to protect them. Should they ever get removed, either willingly or by getting burned off, they will take damage from the cold each turn.

That aside, the game is like Fire Emblem if it was slow, annoying to control, and had uninspired map design. On the plus side, every mission you complete gives you a level up for the whole team.

While most of the enemies in this game are recycled from Skylight 1, there is one all-new enemy that is introduced here: the Golem. Like the Indestructibles, they can be really annoying to deal with, yet are very weak to fire and explosives, which, given their tendency to counter direct attacks, is by far the safest way to dispatch them.

In the very next mission, we catch up with our target, yet rather than fight the party himself, he leaves you at the mercy of his throwaway mooks.

But they're not quite the standard "guy with weapon" type enemies that made up most of the first Skylight's enemy repertoire. These are called Golemers, and their main gimmick is to summon Golems from the pools of symbiote that they are often seen nearby. For this mission, you face eight of them, as well as a Golem that's already on the field.

The best thing to do here is to stock up on fire bombs for each character, and set fire to the symbiote pools before the Golemers can do anything with them.

After dealing with them, we are treated to the chains of overlong cutscenes that The D seems to love so much. There's nothing I can say about them; most of them consist of Tyler spouting horny nonsense, which Melissa counters with uptight nonsense, and sometimes we get a few words about the guy we've been hunting down. It almost makes me miss The Demon Rush's exposition dumps. Almost.

Also, Melissa at some point goes to the Maritime provinces for a mission, which probably would be really nice to play through, or even see.

So we're back in Toronto. Of course we have a new villain to deal with: someone called the Ladykiller.

Remember Simon, the team medic? He ditched us after the prologue, so we need to hire someone to replace him. They settle on some guy named Ashley, a self-proclaimed indie engineer. Now, you might think that this is an obvious parallel to The D's indie development hobby, and you would be mostly right. The game makes a point of bringing up that members of this subculture are recognized by their prominent neckbeards. Right. So what do we make of this: a rare moment of self-awareness, or him throwing stones at other (or perhaps his own) creative subcultures?

Oh right, our new party member. He specializes in planting turrets on the field, which provide a variety of uses, such as restoring party members' health and ammo, or attacking nearby enemies, but only while a party member is standing next to them. He also specializes in some of the new weapon types introduced in this game: behemoths, which are cannons that are so heavy, the user can't move on the turn after firing them, and battering rams, which hit hard and require two party members to use.

Yes, he can't quite fill the same niche that Simon filled in the last game (which is mainly occupied by Melissa this time)

Remember John A from last game? He's gone rogue and attacks Melissa right outside of HQ. Except it's not actually him, it's something made of Symbiote.

And here's our second new enemy type: Phantoms. They're unarmed fighters, and unarmed attacks work pretty much the same way that they did in the last game in that they get stronger with consecutive uses. So, as the game recommends, you need to kill them quickly. Good thing there's only one of them.

In the mission after that, we face five of them at once. But in this mission, each of them is controlled by a Manipulator, another new enemy. Not only are they fragile, but once you defeat them, any Phantoms that they control go down as well. It's a good thing they're standing out in the open for our snipers to pick off.

After facing them and a few more Indestructible rights activists, we wind up in the Ladykiller's home.

The house is just lousy with Indestructibles, but you have a variety of means to burninate them, so they're not much of a problem.

The Ladykiller himself is a tougher nut to crack. He has an assault rifle, which hits multiple times per attack, and I'm not sure if there's a glitch or anything, but in his hands, it often attacks multiple party members at once.

So that's him subdued. But it looks like someone has followed us to the perp.

Oh, I see. A bunch of glory hounds here to piggyback on GTAL's fame and take credit for capturing the criminal. You could have at least come up with a better name!

So, this is Dean Lea and his gang of knockoffs.

Cause as we all know, there's nothing sexier than a melting department store mannequin in pants that don't fit.

After introducing the group, Dean guns down the Ladykiller before we can take him to the station, all the while blabbing about how "artistic" the city is. I'm pretty sure that this is a felony. Although this may seem like a setback for our team, it can only help, um...the league of villains hiding in a place with really ugly wallpaper?

Oh no. Not them again. Remember them? They were the guys that popped up in the aftermath of the Northern Burning to blow shit up and cheer on the monstrous man-kaiju laying waste to what was left of the country.

And since they evidently took that symbol nonsense from last game to heart, the first thing they do is burn down Melissa's house.

In the meantime, Melissa is forced into a meeting with Dean Lea regarding her treatment of him, even though he not only interfered with their law enforcement activity, but also recorded him and his group doing so. Not only that, but he also complains about where he's seated. Do you expect me to take him seriously as an antagonist?

This meeting isn't getting anywhere, is it?

And if that wasn't bad enough, Melissa's mother dies. RIP, the old woman who the team met precisely twice (or maybe more. I don't want to go through the first two chapters of Skylight again.)

I understand that there seemed to be only a few brain cells shared among the casts of The D's earlier games, but this? You are being lectured by a man who openly admitted to murdering the criminal that the police were trying to interrogate, all the while poorly attempting to imitate the members of said police force! How do you expect me to believe that this little pissant is responsible for the resurgence of the anarchist group that terrorized Canada in the wake of the firestorm?

Real mature. I may have said this earlier, but the writing for these games feels like it came from a 12-year-old trying to turn his playground jokes into a game.

Oh, this chapter's plot is about Bethany trying to get a date. For all its issues, I'll give the game this, The Demon Rush would never have these relatively normal plotlines like this. Granted, the execution still isn't good, so maybe the reason I'm conferring even the slightest praise to this is that these games have given me Stockholm Syndrome.

Speaking of The Demon Rush, there's apparently a show based on it in this universe. As if the Skylight series from last game wasn't bad enough. I'm not even going to ask why Jimmy's wearing a pink speedo.

Bethany's date is part of the NDC, and is trying to rope her into the organization, so it's up to the team to break it up.

Huh, the enemy has broken into our headquarters. It's just like old times.

We have to fight six guys with just Tyler and Erin. Just chuck some firebombs at them and we're on our way.

After that, we have a mission where Melissa and Bethany have to face six mooks. Of course, there's always the option of just running past them to the exit.

On to Gregory and Ashley. Looks like Ashley's got a date as well, but it didn't go over too well...

Remind me again why this indie engineer thing has a thriving subculture, or why whoever's responsible for this hasn't been blacklisted from it.

Oh, these two get their own mission right after this.

After that, Bethany's date is foiled, and before we have a chance to process it, the NDC attacks us.

This battle is a lot easier than it looks, despite the fact that you start off surrounded by Phantoms and Indestructibles. But the Indestructibles are both close together and flammable, and the Phantoms' manipulators can be easily picked off with anyone with a rifle, so...

Our heroes, ladies and gentlement, threatening a suspect with the prospect of being violated in prison! Good thing that Dean Lea guy isn't listening in, who knows how he'll use that in his next speech

Anyways the bad guys are in Winnipeg, which I'm pretty sure got burned in the last game. So it's off to Canada's super-subway once more.

Look who we have here, it's the guy from the prologue mission.

Of course, The D takes this opportunity to beat you over the head with some of the most low-effort innuendo you've ever seen!

And just to remind you, a comic for preteen girls somehow manages to be far more tasteful with its horny jokes than this game. And that had a dog getting plowed on panel!

Wait, that might not be the best example. MARDEK was developed at around the same time, and it had more tasteful dirty humor! And that was a game where one of the most powerful healing items was literal piss!

This mission is pretty tricky. Andretti, one of the main enemies, has a behemoth, so he's tough to approach on his own. And there are no less than three Phantoms, whose Manipulators are really hard to reach, as well as several Golemers.

How many enemies does GTAL have anyways? Also, the way this is framed makes me feel that I should recognize him from somewhere, but this game's samefacing makes it pretty much impossible.

I'm not going to lie to you, this actually shocked me. Too bad what comes after only seems to make sense if you read John A's file from last game. Simon's real name is David Fitzpatrick, and he's now working with a group called Severin. Remember this for later. They are responsible for the creation of something called the True Skylight Symbiote, which confers immortality (kind of like Cook's medallion), and which John A is infused with. But since he was about to make public that Severin was responsible for the Skylight Symbiote, they imprisoned him and stripped him of the True Symbiote, somehow.

I'm not sure how much of this matters, because after that, he literally sics the entirety of his forces against us, consisting of Phantoms (without Manipulators), Indestructibles, Golems, and snipers. We have to survive their onslaught for eight rounds, but that's much easier said than done. The best thing to do is to have everyone defend until time runs out. Because there's no escaping turtling when it comes to The D.

Seriously? You're just going to reuse the Impossible plot that you helped to stop, Simon?

Though unlike Impossible, this creature is not autonomous, nor does Severin want it to be, and the military's closing in, so we don't even get an unwinnable boss fight with it.

So, back to Toronto. There's some guy named Alessus who stabs people with vines. I'm sure he won't be waiting in the wings for when either Severin or the NDC are dealt with.

Oh, Dean Lea is still here. And now that I think of it, he might be a subconscious reflection of The D. Think about it, he makes these utterly inane, self-contradicting statements that somehow manage to get the listening public riled up against his enemies, the GTAL. I'm sure he wishes that he could do the same for his games, yet what little manages to gain the public's attention only brings him mockery.

The plotline for this chapter involves the GTAL crew having to deal with HR. Yeah, it's nice to have something like this to ground the setting after all this time fighting mutants and rock monsters. Too bad it's executed exactly how you'd expect The D to.

To make things brief, the group's higher-ups want Melissa out of the picture so that they can hire new employees that won't draw the ire of anarchist groups, so they fire her and Bethany for a flimsy reason. Seriously? Get rid of by far your most competent member as a PR stunt? Either you're just as brain-damaged as Dean Lea and his supporters, are in league with the NDC or Severin, or both. Furthermore, why make up a reason to fire them, when you could just use the fact that they threatened a suspect with prison rape not too long ago?

Speaking of brain-damaged, some sympathizers have showed up to break Tutorial Guy and Bodily Fluid Sculpture Guy from jail. Meanwhile, Severin is attacking us with a brand-new type of Indestructible, one with a really goofy-looking pose.

They're supposed to be glass cannons, but in practice, they don't do that much more damage than the garden-variety Indestructibles, to say nothing of their persistent weakness to fire. Furthermore, the map gives us basically a straight shot to the exit.

Oh, it's Garrett. Who are you again?

Oh wait, we get our answer right away. He was in the first Skylight, and I think he got jealous at Melissa climbing through the ranks of GTAL.

Melissa's not here, but she doesn't need to be for them to hurt her. Their goal is to turn the public against GTAL, which they aim to achieve by...killing one of their own members in GTAL headquarters.

Seriously? Do you really think that this is going to help you? All the public will know for sure is that someone was killed in the headquarters, and it's likely that they're aware that they've been attacked several times. In other words, the kind of situation where they would be justified in defending themselves. And that's assuming the murder gets traced back to GTAL rather than you in the first place.

I didn't get any screenshots of the mission, but although it involves facing only three enemies in plain sight of the team, it may be the most brutal mission in the game so far. The main enemy is Matthews (man, keeping track of these villains is really hard), who uses a rocket launcher. Like in Skylight 1, they do splash damage, and the battlefield is pretty small, so it's likely that he'll be able to hit more than one party member. If that wasn't bad enough, he counters attacks with that same rocket launcher. This would be tough with a full pary, but we face him with just Erin, Gregory, and Ashley, who aren't exactly built for endurance. Oh, and Andretti and his behemoth cannon are back, hooray!

To beat them, I not only had to reset Gregory's skill points to maximize his damage output, but also make use of a strategy that the game doesn't put a whole lot of focus on. For some reason, in both this game and its precursor, you do more damage if you spent the previous turn defending. Seriously, what is with The D's games and turtling?

So with them defeated, I've logged around 6 hours of gameplay. I guess now's a good time to take a break. If there's any praise I can give it so far, it's that it's slightly better with pacing than Skylight 1. I didn't dread the missions in this game as much as I did the first game's linear, unavoidable encounter-filled corridors. I'm willing to call this the best of The D's games so far, even though it's still an embarassingly-written mess.